Application of dust and PM2.5 detection methods using MODIS data to the Asian dust events which aggravated Respiratory Symptoms in Western Japan in May 2011

摘要

Asian dust (i.e., dust and sandstorm: DSS) is a phenomenon that wind-borne soil and mineral particles are raised thousands of meters into the air in arid and semi-arid regions of China and Mongolia, and is carried by westerly winds and sometimes reaches Japan. The PM2.5 air pollution often occurs in urban and industrial areas of China recently, and sometimes flows into Japan. DSS and PM2.5 affect the human health. DSS can be detected by using AVI method of the satellite remote sensing technique. AVI is defined as AVI=T12-T11, where T12 and T11 are the brightness temperatures at 12μm and 11μm wave lengths, respectively. For MODIS data, T12 and T11 correspond to band32 and band31, respectively. PM2.5 can be detected by using the proposed method {R, G, B} = {bandlO, band 9, T11}. In this paper, these methods are applied to the DSS events which aggravated Respiratory Symptoms (Asthma) in Western Japan in May 2011. The DustRGB method {R, G, B} = {AVI, T11-T8.5, T11}, which was proposed by EUMETSAT in 2011, is examined and also is applied to some dust images.